1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a wireless terminal. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus for controlling power consumption in a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) phone.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a device in which both a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) function and a wireless terminal function are implemented is a PDA phone or a smart phone. The PDA phone has basic PDA functions, such as a portable computer function, an electronic note function, an Internet search function, and a cellular phone function such as a conventional wireless phone function. In general, wireless terminals, such as a PDA phone, use a battery pack for operational power. However, the battery pack used in wireless terminals has limited power because of its small size. Accordingly, a method of saving power consumption is very important. More specifically, a desirable feature of PDA phones is their ability to perform multitasking. However, much power is consumed during multitasking. Thus, the performance and sales of PDA phones depend on a battery's capacity or useable time. In the past, in order to increase a useable time of a PDA phone, power consumed in the PDA phone was minimized by varying a core clock of a PDA controller using a Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC). However, in general, a circuit configuration using the PMIC is difficult to implement. Also, a volume of a circuit configuration using the PMIC is large. Thus, it is desired to increase a useable time of a PDA phone by minimizing power consumption of the PDA phone using a simple circuit configuration without a separate chip such as the PMIC.